— possibility exists for replacement of Patterson

By Rehana Ahmad

ANOTHER sitting of the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was supposed to have been convened on Monday, but stalemate continues as the opposition remains determined not to replace David Patterson as chairman of the committee.

Last week’s meeting ended in an uproar as the government’s side of the PAC attempted to pass a motion for Patterson’s removal as chairman of the constitutional body. As it is, a possible date for the PAC has not been announced, and both the sides of the committee are maintaining their stance.
During a recent interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs explained that a possible outcome could be the government moving to amend the Standing Order to allow for Patterson to be replaced, possibly by Lennox Shuman, head of the three-party minority opposition.
According to Isaacs, the possibility exists for the government members of the PAC to return to the ‘full house’ National Assembly seeking to amend the Standing Order to increase the composition of the Committee, which currently stands at five government members and four opposition members.

Efforts to contact Shuman to ascertain whether or not he would accept a potential nomination to head the PAC were all unsuccessful. Opposition Member of Parliament, Ganesh Mahipaul in an invited comment could not confirm whether his party is considering replacing Patterson as a means of maintaining chairmanship of the PAC. He opined however, that if the government chooses to go ahead with replacing Patterson, it would be an “infringement on democracy.”
“It is going to be an insult, because they can do it, but they would have to amend the Standing Order,” Mahipaul said. He believes that should Shuman be appointed, it would be a major conflict of interest. “I don’t know if the government will go ahead with that move, but if they do, we will have to cross that bridge when we get to it. That is the official answer,” Mahipaul asserted.

NO DEFINITIVE DECISION YET

So far, the government side of the PAC has not made any definitive decision on the way forward. The majority of members are hopeful that the APNU+AFC members would “come to their senses” and replace Patterson as their pick to chair the PAC.
Last week, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, attempted to present the motion to replace Patterson in his capacity as the Chairperson of the PAC, and not as a member. “In this case, I brought a motion calling on, and I did preface what I said by saying that it would be wisest if Mr. Patterson resigned as chair. Nothing I proposed asked that Mr. Patterson be removed as a member of the PAC,” Teixeira told reporters shortly after the adjournment of the PAC last Monday.
Patterson, the former Minister of Public Infrastructure, is currently being investigated as part of the gift-giving scandal in which it is alleged that he received in excess of $2 million in gifts from agencies that were under his remit. He is also facing charges for allegedly defrauding the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC).

Teixeira, in presenting her motion, said that the government, acting on behalf of the people, do not have confidence in Patterson’s competence to scrutinise public spending, while being publicly involved in financial scandals relating to government monies.
All the while, the opposition PAC members have insisted that none of them will take Patterson’s place, since he has earned the full confidence of his Coalition party which represents some 49 per cent of Guyanese.

As the saga continues, both sides of the Committee are accusing the other of attempting to obstruct the work of the PAC; the government MPs believe that the stalling of the PAC’s work is an attempt to distract the committee from scrutinising the Auditor General’s 2017, 2018 and 2019 reports. Similarly, the opposition members of the PAC expressed suspicion that the motion was a tactic to prevent the PAC from moving on to examine government spending for the latter part of 2020 and going forward.

Presently, the work of the PAC is far behind schedule, with the committee only now wrapping up examination of the country’s questionable 2016 spending.